The Speculist

The Love Machine

Via KurzweilAI.net, here's a WiredNews story about an effort to create computer programs that care about us. This is just what I was talking about the other day. We need the relationship between human and machine to be one of friendship.

In this case, the computer program cares for her human friend by nagging him to work out more. The nagging is presumably mitigated by the fact that she is depicted as a total babe. This reminds me of a bumper sticker I once saw:

There is no woman so beautiful that there isn't some man, somewhere, who is sick of listening to her crap.

Anyhow, sexist words of inspiration aside, this is a good first try. We have to realize that we are the ones who get to decide, initally, what it means for a computer to be friends with a human being. (Later, they'll be the ones deciding what it means.) Maybe we don't want them nagging us to work out. Maybe we'd rather they just engaged us in witty conversation.

Likewise, we need to start thinking about what it means for a human being to be friends with a machine. What can we do for them?